


For the ages are in thy keeping

by Hyperboloids



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Gen, M/M, University, andy has a flip phone, andy is mortal- or is she?, do not @ me I write uni fic in Europe only it is All I Know, the gang goes to university but mostly Nile, this fic is not devoid of angst but it is devoid of more death so you're welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 04:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29745069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyperboloids/pseuds/Hyperboloids
Summary: After a few weeks spent on sea shores, sun-soaked and idle, Nile returns from a morning hike with newfound resolve.She wants to go to university.It isn’t necessarily surprising, but it leaves Andy slightly shaken. She’d assumed they’d go back to business as usual, Copley a reliable intel source. She had started organising all the required safehouses, identity papers and currencies. She’d never accounted for any change of plans other thanthis, the mission Andy thought would be shared with Nile, now.But then she recalls Nile saying, “you’re going to spend it with us, Andy,” and she wasn’t referring to their mission, ultimately. She was referring to her life.Andy had never thought of herself as selfish, but this is a reminder that against her centuries of experiences, Nile only has a couple decades.And so maybe what Andy needs is to not call the shots, but instead let Nile go first and choose their next path forward.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 9
Kudos: 87
Collections: The Old Guard Big Bang





	For the ages are in thy keeping

**Author's Note:**

> This is an entry for The Old Guard Big Bang 2021!
> 
> Wow okay. I managed? To finish?? 
> 
> Which would never have happened without the help of my wonderful, wonderful people, namely:
> 
> Ishi, for being an amazing friend and being the best critique and advisor I could ever ask for. I love you, edgelord.  
> Teo, for being a constant source of support and laughter, always cheering me on. I love you, petty raccoon.  
> Madi, for being the kindest, most patient beta, helping me right down to the last minute and never giving up on me. I love you, guardian angel.  
> To the discord server, y'all truly push me to start things and finish them. You're all an inspiration and when I grow up and I wanna be like you.  
> To thesunwillart (find her on tumblr, she's amazing!), was super fun to discuss and vibe with you. Sorry I'm a disaster!
> 
> Hope you enjoy this <3

In the aftermath of everything, they take a break.

Andy, still reeling from her loss of immortality, came face to face with Quynh.

The subsequent reunion brought as much heartbreak as it did healing. So much healing, it seemed, that it cured Andy of her newly-found mortality—a discovery that dried the tear-streaked face of a grieving Quynh who held onto the fatally-wound body that was, once more, mended back to life. 

No one voiced their suspicions on what could have provoked this renewed lease on immortality, but all slept more comfortably after that eventful day.

Still, Quynh left alongside Booker, unclear of where either of them fit anymore yet unable to sever their connection with the others. With their immortality suddenly so capricious, it seemed futile.

After a few weeks spent on sea shores, sun-soaked and idle, Nile returns from a morning hike with newfound resolve.

She wants to go to university.

It isn’t necessarily surprising, but it leaves Andy slightly shaken. She’d assumed they’d go back to business as usual, Copley a reliable intel source. She had started organising all the required safehouses, identity papers and currencies. She’d never accounted for any change of plans other than _this_ , the mission Andy thought would be shared with Nile, now.

But then she recalls Nile saying, “you’re going to spend it with us, Andy,” and she wasn’t referring to their mission, ultimately. She was referring to her life.

Andy had never thought of herself as selfish, but this is a reminder that against her centuries of experiences, Nile only has a couple decades.

And so maybe what Andy needs is to not call the shots, but instead let Nile go first and choose their next path forward.

*

The process of figuring out how to make Nile’s wish happen, and safely at that, triggers a chain of events which find Andy reeling amid the emotional tumult of losing then regaining her immortality, being reunited with Quynh and attempting to handle the Booker situation. She is left exhausted, but then again, weariness has been a companion for some millennia now and her responsibility over the wellbeing of her army—of her friends—the only force saving her from rapid entropy. 

Nile, in opposition, is still brand-new. But where she enjoys a certain levity that will slowly be chipped away with passing centuries, she has not yet been provided true opportunities to figure out her new life. Going to university appears like a fitting first step, a means through which to gain a sense of control over her life when her ability to choose has recently been constantly comprised by fate and circumstances. Softly, Andy thinks that Nile also deserves to have the space to explore human experiences that do not involve getting shot every other day. 

Nile opens up an invitation to the others but does not press them. Unsurprisingly, Joe decides he should make use of one of his many PhDs and teach again. Nicky, inevitably, comes along for the adventure, however settling for a chaotic assortment of classes without a clear degree in sight, playfully suggesting he’ll get to play student with his husband during his office hours.

As for Andy, the choice was always already made for her. She would have followed Nile anyway, anywhere. After feeling like she had been running in circles for centuries, the responsibility of watching over Nile, Joe and Nicky while continuing her work with Copley feels more than appropriate.

They move to Europe (or rather, stay in) and Nile selects an international program in History at a German university.

It’s quick work to find a big, spacious flat – it’s close to campus and the street they live in has uneven cobblestones and a tram line. Nile is elated and homesick at the same time, the foreign language and the number of bicycles something to get used to during her first few days.

Andy seems to thrive, here. She is obsessed with the supermarkets in the country, and Nile tries to keep up when they go grocery shopping for the first time.

She gets whiplash from watching Andy pack up groceries faster than Nicky cleans his guns, and by the time they walk home with fancy new reusable bags, she crashes on the sofa for a nap.

*

Booker informs her via text with a kind but final “no” that he refuses to move to Germany. Joe later informs Nile that 200 years is still too soon for someone who had to fight the Prussian & German armies every few decades (and die doing it).

Mostly, though, Booker’s German is shit.

*

Barely a month in Nicky is testing Nile’s nerves by breezing into one of her art history classes and declaring to the students with the most innocent face that all the renaissance artists were not actually that repressed but very gay and polyamorous.

It is not his comment that she minds, but the increasing pressure at trying to assimilate a frankly overwhelming amount of new information – this in the company of immortals who have lived through empires and ages, and who take great pleasure at disputing seemingly everything she’s learned that day. This is not what she imagined going back to school would be like.

She gets more frustrated as she tries to adapt to a schedule that has no routine. Her classes change from one week to another, workshops and seminars haphazardly thrown around her schedule, sometimes changing last minute or postponed a month later. She can’t wrap her head around the lack of routine, waking up every day at the same time to sit and wait for a lecture that doesn’t start until noon.

She loses it after two weeks and asks Andy to let her in on her workout schedule.

It usually goes like this: Andy wakes up at the crack of dawn, gets some stretches and a morning run in. If she feels up to it, some weapon practice and if the space allows, beating up a sandbag. (Joe’s installing one in the spare room).

Nile’s lungs ache after the third day of Andy’s routine, breathing heavy and mind clearer than it’s been since she started classes.

For Andy, this cements the knowledge that Nile is more alike to her than they both thought. Maybe it’s not as obvious due to the millennium-wide gap between them, but Andy sees herself in Nile in a way she’s never experienced with the others. The razor-sharp focus, the assertive attitude when confronted with a problem that needs solving.

She can’t help but think that Nile is in for some very unusual years ahead – academic or not, there is change and very little stability ahead, especially for someone whose primary instinct is to face the future head on.

Andy knows she’s the best person to help Nile through it. It’s not even a question of whether she wants to be her leader, but whether she can be a good enough one for Nile, considering how much she’s already learned from the young woman.

She wants this to be as good a fresh start as she can make it for Nile, and this starts with her army of immortals being the supportive lot she knows they can be.

Which means keeping _everyone_ in the loop, starting with Booker. She knows Nile disapproved of his penance, and later managed to negotiate looser terms by arguing over semantics (and his invaluable help with talking Quynh down from committing some of his old mistakes).

Talking to Booker is easy, if a bit bittersweet. He answers her, of course, but it's brief, with barely any traces of their easy banter. She knows he's been in contact with Nile already – she just checks in to keep an eye on him, too.

The real challenge is knowing how to talk to Quynh.

It starts with fighting off the guilt at the back of her throat and contacting Quynh - phone calls are still strange, so she sends a brief text which reads more like a _posthaste_ letter.

_Quynh,_

_We are in Heidelberg. Nile is studying at the university._

_Hope you’re well._

_Andy_

She finds herself lost in thought as she stares at the small screen, musings of another time and place. Another lifetime. Quynh was always the one enjoying scholarly pursuits when they were stopping in bigger cities, Andy only concerning herself with military tomes and searching for old accounts of past battles she fought in. Being able to recall what went wrong, avoid ambushes and profit off of enemy tactics is how Andy anticipates the next conflict. Back then, she had the (misguided) notion that wars could be, if not prevented, then finished swiftly.

On the occasional times they would sit in a library, or attending lectures on philosophy, Andy was more engrossed by Quynh’s face, poised and focus, an occasional uptick of her lips as she heard Andy’s sighs next to her.

She did like spending the day in a library, dust and candlewax smell permeating their clothes; subsequently being blinded by sunlight after stepping out, not knowing how long they’d spent reading, scratching over pages, ink stains on the soft skin of their fingers.

If their clothes became so heavy with dust and blood that they had to stop and bathe in a stream, Quynh was the one brewing tea while Andy put their clothes up to dry. She could perceive any signs of distress in Andy’s posture, just like Andy knew when Quynh needed a break from endless killing, eyes pinched and head hanging low.

Quynh was the one finding sweets at markets, wrapped in leaves or paper, hidden away until Andy’s stress lines appeared on her forehead and Quynh’s smile mirrored them. Andy can still recall the taste of sweet honey, baklava melting in her mouth, her shoulders sagging.

Most important of all, Quynh was always _there_. An equal, steady presence through all of it. Andy was lucky enough to grow alongside her, and she craves the nostalgia of it today, still.

She doesn’t know how to offer reassurance to Nile in the way she knew how to. She’s not sure she did such a great job with Booker.

So maybe Quynh can help, even from a distance. 

She blinks down at her flip phone, knows full well Quynh will see through her words, and pockets it.

*

After yet another successful trip to the supermarket, Andy comes home to their flat, its silence during the day still a little odd after spending weeks in close quarters at the seaside.

The good thing about being alone with no upcoming trips for the next few days is being able to organise the whole flat to her liking.

She stashes chocolate and sweets in three different locations (trust Joe to find most of them within a week); organises the fridge and cupboards by frequency of use, and makes sure to find everyone’s favourite drinks to fuel them for the late night studying sessions ahead.

They have three bedrooms, which means they use one as their gym/office, where she sets up their computer and radio links to Copley.

The rest of her time is neatly compartimentalised, workout sessions now involving Nile include thinking up new running paths and core workouts; frequent check-ins with Copley, and chores.

*

According to Andy’s experience, the novelty of university will have worn out two months in, and will give way to assignments piling up, bad sleeping habits and possibly getting kicked out of lectures for having worn men’s clothing to sneak in.

Andy’s a little fuzzy on the century at times, but some things don’t change.

Two days later, sitting at the kitchen table is Nile, head hanging low over a textbook and an avalanche of notes. Joe is eating olives while sitting on the counter, legs kicking. He seems to be filling the mostly one-sided conversation with “what about _history of feminism and its philosophy_?” and some other course titles that makes Andy’s eyebrows twitch.

Andy joins her at the table, nodding at the notes. “Choosing courses for your minor?” she asks, and Nile just sighs, looking up at her.

“I have no idea how to choose a limited amount when all of them seem interesting.” Her eyes look tired but there’s a sparkle to them. Andy gets up to put the kettle on before she sits back down.

“You have time,” she says, matter-of-fact, and Nile gives her a pointed look.

Joe nods from his perch, waving a hand around. “Andy’s not wrong, actually. Look at me, I took my time with learning.”

Nile squints at him. “Didn’t you already have an education by the time you died?”

Joe shrugs. Points towards the sofa. “If we’re going to get technical, so did Nicky, but I don’t think he would tell you it was a very good one.”

A light snore is the only reply, so Joe continues. “It really doesn’t matter how much you learn, as long as you keep an open mind.”

Andy interjects, “You also have access to much more information than we ever did for centuries. You probably know more than all of us combined when we first died.”

Nile perks up a little. “Yeah?”

She turns to Joe, who’s grinning at his napping husband like an absolute fool, clearly thinking about throwing an olive pip at him. “Oh, definitely. I was not the same man I am today when I was your age, Nile.”

She purses her lips, skeptical. “I just feel like I need to catch up, you know?”

“You may have more to learn, but don’t forget I still have a lot to unlearn,” Andy says with a shrug.

Joe hops down from the counter. “Hear, hear.” He taps Nile’s shoulder. “We’ll make an academic out of you yet!”

Nile smiles gratefully, goes back to her notes with Joe standing above her shoulder, absent-mindedly thanking Andy for the cups of chamomile she hands out.

*

Late November finds Nile snuggled up under a blanket and Nicky’s legs, both of them working on assignments. Nile has her laptop precariously on the edge of her knees, typing furiously for five minutes intervals and frowning at her screen for ten more. Nicky has a pencil tucked behind his ear, a textbook wrangled open, spine absolutely mangled as he annotates things on the pages, muttering to himself. Occasionally he jots down some notes on a stray piece of paper, lying somewhere between him and the sofa pillow.

Andy is watching them from the kitchen, amused (as she often is) at the companionable silence and the lack of urgency that currently makes up their days. Joe is helping her, the both of them prepping dinner as they discuss their favourite composers from the Romantic era in hushed tones. Earlier, Joe was working on grading assignments (now left abandoned on the carpet, not so far from Nicky’s feet) and as he got up to greet Andy at the door, put on a Saint-Saëns recording on vinyl.

The ease of the scene brings back memories Andy has staunchly held onto across the millennia, as much as she could anyone. Rather than specific moments, she tries to hang on to her sisters’ presence, her mother’s warmth and Lykon’s beautiful laughter. Stepping inside to find such a picture of domesticity, in which she feels immediately enveloped in, she thinks she would like to commit this to memory for a few more centuries.

She knows it’s not the full picture - Booker’s in Paris, so not too far; Quynh is traveling into the quiet steppes of Mongolia (Andy is fairly sure, anyway) and she aches a little at the thought of them not present.

Right now, though, she has this, and it feels like winding down after an indescribable amount of time feeling on edge.

She’s pondering taking up a class or two, thinking it over. Will only feel ready to ask Nicky about it first, - the least academic of them with her - then go from there to make a final decision.

It’s not that Andy doesn’t like universities - she has spent more time than any other humans in one, for starters - but the feeling of knowledge, and its expanse, gives her vertigo at times. She is conscious this is a feeling only she, to some respect, can feel deep down in her chest, but it doesn’t go away so easily.

And, as she’s been recently shown, sometimes she fails to see the bigger picture.

She wonders, watching Nile’s braids bopping up and down and listening to her fingers on the keyboard, whether this time she can benefit from a new pair of eyes. Someone who will challenge all that Andy has learned and known. Someone like Lykon, who challenged her morals; like Joe and Nicky, who keep showing up for her despite having each other. Someone like Booker, who is too young and misguided, but tried to challenge their pain.

Someone like Quynh.

She pulls her phone from her back pocket, checks the last text she received.

_A,_

_I am traveling home._

_I do not miss horse riding._

_Q_

She tries to rid herself of the notion that there are hidden meanings in the words; in the phrasings.

But then again, this is Quynh. She wouldn’t put it past her.

She pockets the phone again, thinking of a reply.

*

Joe nudges her shoulder, gently stepping in front of her, and she removes the rice from the stove. He winks, sniffing happily over the pan at the smell of curry wafting up.

A few minutes later, she bites her lower lip in excitement at the sight of the pie he takes out of the oven.

She sets up the table and in firmly calls out “Dinner!”, which makes Nicky look up, gentle smile for her and eye crinkles for Joe.

Nile jumps, once, and Andy smiles at her - Nile slaps her laptop shut, shaking her head to hide an answering smile.

Nile gets up, trips a little bit due to both her feet being asleep and Nicky catches her; Andy is almost surprised at how soothing this picture of banality feels.

They all sit down to eat, Nicky having sneakily changed the music to a folk album from the 1960s, and Andy thinks back on how many meals she’s shared with them. How many she could have left.

He glances at her from across the table, which indicates she’s probably a bit faraway. Joe and Nile are busy laughing at some of the faculty teachers attempting to use memes in their lecture slides (no one points out Joe is older than all of them combined) and Nicky is simply interrogating Andy with an eyebrow and a twitch of his lips.

She gets up, clearing out plates and he follows her diligently, cutting the pie into even slices (if a bigger piece for her is considered even, according to the sly look he gives her).

“You know, we can go back full-time,” he says, as if he’s talking about one of his favourite Mediterranean islands and not being literal mercenaries for the greater good (or however what they do is called in the 21st century).

Andy wipes a plate, taking a moment to think.

“Do you want to?” she asks, delaying her answer. She starts scrubbing another plate as Nicky takes out spoons.

“Mh, some days I do. Some days I don’t. Some days I wish someone would make that decision for me.” He looks at her and she smiles back, if a little forced.

“I think I want to take the time for more memories,” she says, the words coming out stilted instead of casual.

Nicky just puts down his handful of spoons and cuts off the water tap in the same movement, gathering her in his arms slowly.

Her hands are wet and she’s off kilter for a second, but Nicky just tightens his hold a fraction, head settled on her shoulder.

She lets out a shaky breath and hears Joe’s chair rattle.

“Andy?” he says at the same time that Nile’s voice chimes up.

“Hey, you better not be bleeding again!”

Andy laughs, voice a little rough. “I’m fine,” she answers, which doesn’t really stop them from stepping over.

Next thing Andy knows, she has Joe’s broad chest at her back, and Nile’s slender fingers gripping tight at her side, head buried somewhere between Joe’s shoulder and Andy’s neck.

She smiles and holds on tighter.

*

Nile loves mornings. It’s a good thing, too, that she can take the time to prepare for the day. She even has time to walk to campus, seeing as the city is short in distances and university buildings pepper its streets all over.

She started going on her own, but recently she’s had company.

Getting coffee with Joe started a little bit by coincidence – mostly Joe is not _really_ a morning person, and years in the Marines sort of drilled a standard wake up time in Nile’s daily life. She doesn’t mind so much that she has to bang on Joe & Nicky’s door progressively loudly – Nicky’s often awake, chuckling at the bedhead trying to curl its way up his armpit.

Usually, Andy’s already awake, having finished her morning training and stretching by the front door, taking slightly more time with her hamstrings – not that she wants to wait around for Nile and Joe to wave them off.

So there Nile is, weeks into her second semester. She’s still off kilter by the foreign country, the fact that she’s living with a new family, one she’s growing to feel affection for. She’s walking with someone she’s come to look up to as an older sibling, and the longing for her own little brother is palpable, even now.

He got into college a few years ago. She would have loved to drive him to campus, set him up into his dorm. Maybe walk with him, grab a coffee together before she’d have to leave again.

Some days she thinks only of them. The urge to call them is always so strong, she makes herself call Booker instead.

He usually has the right words to remind her it’s not a good idea. It’s not the gentle talk down she expects from Nicky, but the harsh truth works best when the image of her mother crying at the news of her death pops up into her mind, unbidden.

To think her mother and her brother are alive and well, like her, but that she can’t have more years with them is excruciating.

Sometimes, the rhythm of her heartbeat, dull against her ribcage, feels like a constant reminder of the life she’s leaving behind.

She briefly thinks of Andy, of the amount of time her heart has kept on beating while everyone else’s around her stopped. She wonders how Andy does it, even when she thought she’d lost the one person she could count on forever.

She lets a frown surface before taking a sip from her thermos.

“What, you have Latin again?” Joe nudges her with an elbow, eyes filled with sleep but his smile already warming up Nile’s mood.

“Nah, tomorrow. Today I have Heuristics.” She gives him a half smile, and his eyes on her let her know he’s not done asking.

“So just melancholy holding your tongue this morning?” Joe tries again, and Nile sighs, forcing a smile on her face again. Joe’s pretty much the quiet one in the mornings, Nile being marginally more awake and having a few existential crises about her immortality before 9am a routine occurrence by now.

“Just thinking,” she answers, feeling herself drift off in thought, and Joe nods, silent.

As much as Joe likes to chat, Nile is grateful for his silence, a needed companion for Nile’s already fogged up mind.

She walks closer to him, sneaks a hand into his elbow.

He lets her, enveloping her hand within his own.

*

Going off on day trips after a call from Copley is Andy’s usual routine, although sometimes it’s a week-long affair. Most times, Nicky joins - Joe usually tags along last minute, if he can. Nile wants to be there, but Andy makes her compromise on a lot of those, wanting her to settle first.

Gradually, Andy finds herself going off alone, separating some of the jobs with Nicky.

Not that it’s anything new.

However, there’s something endearing about coming home to her whole gang spread out over the kitchen table, textbooks and laptops and pencils, a small army of mugs by the dishwasher.

Nile’s brought something akin to youth back to them – something Andy hasn’t reconnected with in centuries. Booker was already battle weary and in pain, way before he died that first time.

Joe and Nicky had lived their own youth and found each other at their pinnacle; had enjoyed what life had to offer way before their swords ever clashed.

They found love instead when death took them.

No, Andy has to go back to Lykon to recall how this feels.

She knows it’s not fair, to make comparisons. But Lykon was joyful and devious all at once, a ray of sunshine where Quynh was her intangible moonlight.

Andy sometimes wonders if she wasn’t just the blank canvas of the night sky. The first one there, ready to be swallowed up and brightened by Lykon’s gentle goading – always craving Quynh’s presence, always wanting her to know her rightful place (by her side).

Going down that path of thinking, she knows, brings nothing but jaded feelings.

She could choose to focus on what she has, rather than what she’s lost. In the scale of her life, it’s all about perspective to even up the tally, but she could do it.

She takes out her phone, hesitating for a moment before sending Quynh a message.

_Quynh,_

_How are you?_

_Coming back from Russia._

_Remember Derbent?_

_Andy_

She could choose to have more, too.

*

Halfway through Nile’s bachelor’s, Andy starts to feel closer to Nile, getting to know her as a person. They’re not strangers anymore, but the generational gap comes out sometimes.

Nothing illustrates this better than when Nile starts answering texts through dinner, volunteering a fraction less for some last-minute diplomacy meddling (Nile’s preferred way of describing their missions) and not coming home at night most weekends.

Andy doesn’t notice at first – she’s often in and out of the country, and days fuse together into stretches of time which are defined by hitting a lot of people, occasionally killing some, and getting back home for some deserved sleep. 

Just as Nile’s social circle drifts from their sole family unit, so does Joe’s – so busy with lectures, grading and research that the only times Andy sees him is abroad, when he joins for a mission.

Nicky is a steady presence, as much as he can taking it upon him to be Andy’s backup. He does his readings next to Andy in the back of a muddy Humvee or finishing assignments last minute on his phone while Andry drives, typing furiously.

Sometimes, though, Nicky stays home, missing his husband. He goes out with fellow students, drinking them all under the table with Nile’s help.

Andy likes coming home and hearing about those stories, is reminded of a time she used to do the same with him and Joe. With Booker, too.

She could join in, but it feels like her time is limited. That what she does best is what she’s been doing for centuries, but now with the added caveat that it could only be a few decades left, at most.

Only now, she questions whether her best matters as much when she comes home to a dark flat, lights out and no notes on the kitchen table.

She texts Copley for an update on any new intel, sitting down on a wooden chair.

Awaiting a reply, she flips open her phone when it pings – sees a text from Nile instead.

“hope ur ok, left some food in the fridge”

Andy texts back one of the smiling faces Nile likes to use, and Nile texts one back in less than a second.

Quynh texts her a second later, a contrast to Nile’s text.

_A,_

_I preferred Samarkand. Better food._

_Traveling is more tiring than I remembered._

_Hope you are well._

_Q_

After a beat, she gets up to open the fridge.

*

Nile isn’t sure what prompts her to ask, but one day, as Andy and her take a walk around the old castle, she goes for it.

“You’ve had relationships with normal people, right?” she asks, nerves a little obvious in her voice.

Andy takes it in stride. “Yeah, we all did. I had a life before, even if I can’t remember most of it,” she answers, casual.

Nile swallows, tries again. “I mean, after. Once you were already immortal.”

This time, Andy takes her time to answer. “The short answer is yes, of course,” she eventually says.

Nile slows down a little, looks at Andy’s profile. “And the long?”

Andy walks ahead of her, stretching her shoulder. “The long answer is, how do you define a proper relationship if you go into it knowing you will have to leave them?” she says with a sigh. “From the start, you have to lie.”

It may not be the answer Nile expected, but it sure as hell is Andy’s brand of honesty.

“So, you never told anyone?” she asks, curious now.

Andy lets out a small laugh, not quite bitter. “I’m sure I did. It still doesn’t change the fact.”

Nile nods, a dozen thoughts popping into her head. “So I guess it’s gonna be me on my own from now on, then?” she asks, thinking of Booker and the death of his children.

She doesn’t dare ask Andy if she had any of her own, fearing the answer. She’s not ready to hear this just yet.

“It doesn’t have to be.” Andy’s voice softens. “There are no rules to follow. You can’t choose who you’ll fall for, or if you want to share who you are with someone.”

In typical Andy fashion, it doesn’t end here. “But you have to deal with the fallback of those choices, and it’s not easy.”

Her words are loaded, and Nile imagines Andy’s been through all those scenarios, in her head and through the years. She can’t fathom the pain, nor the heartbreak.

She thinks of Joe and Nicky.

“Do you think you only meet your soulmate if you become immortal at the same time?” she asks her, trying not to sound too dejected.

Andy shakes her head, puts a warm hand against Nile’s neck. “No help thinking of those two. They have a different story.”

She looks Nile in the eye. “So will you, someday.”

Nile looks back, unblinking. “And what about yours?” she asks, knowing this feels too private to ask about under any other circumstances.

Andy shrugs. Takes out her flip phone, hands it to Nile.

A text is open, dated a few days back. It’s from Quynh.

Nile can’t help but smile, the style of writing so formal.

“Tell me about Samarkand?” she asks, and Andy obliges. 

*

At night, Andy replays the conversation in her head. She should have said a million other things to Nile, starting from the simple fact soulmates do not exist. And if they do, she only knows one pair and they’re sleeping in the bedroom two doors down.

But her phone screen illuminates the dark of her room, and she texts back:

_Quynh,_

_I’m well. Visited the castle ruins today._

_Thought of you._

_Andy_

She hovers over the send button, presses it after a minute that feels like an age.

*

She’s texting Nicky the customary SNAFU as she drives at night, careful to be alone on the road.

She flips her phone closed for it to vibrate a second later. She stops at a stop sign and glances at it.

It’s from Quynh.

She blinks back at the road, scowls at the darkness that stares back. She wants to open the text.

She huffs. Speed dials Nile instead.

“Andy?” Nile’s voice isn’t sleepy, and she can hear music in the background. She lets herself purse her lips in fondness, since no one’s around to see it.

“Homework is done?” she says, shifting gears.

“Ha ha, very funny. I’ve only got one assignment and it’s due next week.” There is static and then Nile is back on the phone. “Joe is trying to teach me how to waltz.”

Andy laughs, loud and happy. “Joe’s waltzing with you?” she says, almost incredulous. “I’ve got to see this.”

Nile’s smile is contagious in her voice. “Well, _trying_. Nicky’s not really helping, either.” She slips into her Chicago drawl on the last word, and Andy swallows at the homesickness that hits her from the back of the throat.

“Well, you’ll have to show me your progress.” Her voice is as steady as she knows it, but her hand on the wheel isn’t.

“Yeah, when are you home by the way?” Nile asks, words softening.

“Depending on weather, two to four hours,” Andy answers, nonchalant. As if she didn’t cut her trip short, forgoing a shower and burning her old clothes instead. As if she’s not running on caffeine and fumes, sleep a distant call.

Nile makes a little sound, followed by a “Oh!” that is so adorable Andy grins for the first time in the ten days she’s been gone.

“Andy! We don’t have any food because I live with two barbarians who emptied the fridge before I got home.” Nile’s speaking fast, elation and worry in her voice. “Is everything ok? Are you—”

“I’m not hurt. Actually, healed pretty fast this time around.” Andy makes her voice as calm as possible, occasionally checking her rearview mirror. “I just felt like being back,” she admits, not sure why it feels like a confession.

“Okay, I’ll order Lebanese. Let’s share the huge mezze, yeah? None for the ballet boys,” Nile says, and Andy hears some sort of chaos in the background – presumably Joe correcting her on the dance and Nicky asking Joe for a press-lift.

“Sounds perfect. See you soon.” Andy ends the call, text momentarily forgotten. It can wait until she’s sitting down with Nile, eating falafels and asking her boys to open the text for her.

It can wait for her to be home.

*

Going on a mission during exam season is the most stressful thing Nile has experienced so far.

Yes, she’s been under enemy fire in the past – but she was trained for it.

No one trained her to infiltrate a prison camp and smuggle out a kidnapped journalist while her mind is reviewing ancient Greek vocabulary.

She almost gets spotted, crouching down quickly. Nicky’s voice comes over her radio, “Only one more floor.”

She nods to herself, quickly checking the journalist is still with her. He seems as shaky as she feels.

They make it out in one piece, guards dropping like flies on their way out, Nicky’s steady trigger finger working wonders.

They’re waiting for Joe who shows up with a car, driving them back to their hired helicopter.

The journalist looks pale, so Nile gives him some water. She takes out her vocabulary list, ready to review it using the backseat light.

“Who are you people?” the journalist asks, still shaking.

“The good guys?” Joe answers, which doesn’t reassure in the slightest.

Nicky turns towards him. “Here to serve Justice,” he says, voice soft and Nile looks up at him with a brief smile. She loves it when he terrorises people inadvertently through kindness.

She chimes up, "I'm just the intern."

Joe smothers a giggle while Nicky nods, all seriousness. "She's our best yet."

He winks at her, and the journalist stops asking questions after that, sitting in silence until they arrive at their destination.

Nile doesn't quite ace the exam, but she gets more than a pass. That counts for something.

*

Getting hit in the face has its own flavour of new.

First, Andy’s got more used to it now that she spars with Nile weekly.

Second, if she gets a tooth knocked out, she’s not certain it’ll grow back.

Third, she shouldn’t be getting hit in the face that easily.

She parries another hit with one arm, severs the guy’s hand with her other, wielding her labrys. She doesn’t spare a thought to the hired mercenary as she makes her way through a few others.

Something is definitely off; she feels sluggish and her movements seem to slow. She’s alone. No backup.

The realisation is delayed, her eyes searching for an escape from the dirty rooftop, the moon barely visible in the night sky not providing enough light.

It’s not her first time getting cornered, but it is her first time not knowing if she’ll make it out alive.

She falters, gets another hit to the plexus. She’s out of breath and barely manages to move, getting slashed on the shoulder. She falls on one knee, warm blood trickling through her hand, her human reflex kicking in to try and staunch the bleeding.

Her vision starts to blur, and she knows in this moment-

She’s mortal again.

The last thing she hears before she loses consciousness is her full name, a distant echo.

*

She wakes up in the backseat of a car, the engine revving as the car speeds through on uneven asphalt.

She groans. Her head feels heavy, and she takes a second to crack her neck before her hand finds her shoulder. No fresh blood. She blinks, scratching at the dry flakes, but the skin underneath is smooth.

She exhales shakily, before looking up at the driver.

There is barely any light, but she can make out a long braid, a delicate and firm jaw. She’s seen it enough, dreams and memories alike, to recognise it instantly.

“Quynh,” she breathes out her name, and she can’t tell if she imagines it but she thinks she sees turn her head and smile.

“Andromache.”

Andy tries to sit up, but her body still feels like lead, her hands struggling for purchase on the seat.

“You were poisoned,” Quynh says, matter-of-fact, and Andy huffs out, annoyed.

“No shit.”

Quynh's sharp laugh is a welcome sound.

“Where are we?” Andy asks next, because she's not the kind of person who dwells on the how or why until she knows they're safe.

“Two hours to the Russian border, then a charter plane to Frankfurt.” Andy nods, going over the night's events in her head, until they stop.

“And the compound?” she asks, hoping she won't have to go back there anytime soon.

Quynh's eyes flash in the rearview mirror at the same time they pass another car's headlights, then disappear. “Gone.”

Andy feels a chill go up her spine, knowing full well what kind of picture was left behind.

“One less oligarch selling arms,” Andy says after a while, looking out the window. It's easy to get lulled back into her cynicism, not certain she achieved any good tonight.

“No dead immortals,” Quynh says, traces of humour in her dry tone.

Andy refrains from pointing out how mortal she was just a few hours ago. She knows Quynh figured it out, too.

“Are you here on every call, or just when I'm going in alone?” she asks, hoisting herself up completely, feeling her muscle soreness gently ebbing.

Quynh doesn't answer and just keeps driving.

It's odd to reconcile, the vision of her driving a car in modern clothing. It doesn't match up with the Quynh that's been living in Andy's head.

But then, she probably doesn't match Quynh's memories of her. And that stings more than it should.

*

“Copley's efficient,” Quynh says, waking Andy from a light sleep. She hadn't realised she'd drifted off and straightens her posture a little.

“Yeah, a little too efficient.” It's not necessarily a jibe at Quynh, but it feels like Copley doesn't divulge all the intel he has, evidently.

“I like Booker, too,” Quynh continues, and Andy raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, the bastard can be nice.”

She doesn't know what's going on, if this is Quynh trying to have a normal conversation, telling her she approves of her new people while simultaneously not trusting either enough to follow Andy and come to her rescue.

It's a little confusing.

“I think you'd like Nile,” she says, "She's a smartass like you."

Quynh laughs again, and Andy smiles.

“I should meet her soon, then.”

*

Nicky's eyebrows become straight lines when he's deeply worried. Nile didn't know until now, but it's almost comical to watch.

Joe's face is just the picture of anguish, and she imagines Booker to look as sad he usually does, but probably more tired.

They haven't heard from Copley yet, so they've been waiting for two hours to know anything about Andy's status.

Copley lost any radio contact and can't track her location.

Deeply concerned is an understatement to how Nile feels. She tries to remember if Andy was healing this week. If she drew blood during any sparring sessions over the last few weeks.

Her brain can't properly process the memories. She's sleep deprived, at the last stretch of last semester, and she hasn't been able to join as many missions as she'd like with Andy.

The guilt she feels is overpowering any other feeling, and for now she settles on that. Anything to not think of the worst-case scenarios that she guesses are flipping through everyone's mind.

She texts Booker on the hour, "still nothing" and he doesn't reply.

It's 3am and she already texts her group chat that she can't make it to study group the next day. She's already preparing her gear, knowing she can go in and save her again if this is a hostage situation.

She really hopes it's a hostage situation. 

At 5am, pacing through the living room, her phone rings.

She picks up, and a voice she doesn’t recognise greets her.

“Nile?” The like is noisy, the connection choppy.

“Yes?”

“This is Quynh. I’m with Andy.” There’s a pause as Quynh’s muffled voice addresses someone in a foreign language.

“She’s alright.” Her voice sounds so calm, despite the metallic echo.

“Oh, thank god. Thank you.” Nile hears the tremors in her own voice, doesn’t care. She gives a shaky smile to Nicky, who’s getting up from the sofa, eyes intense on hers.

Quynh’s laugh is a wonderful balm to her heart. “You can just call me Quynh.”

Nile’s answering chuckle is a fraction too loud.

“We’ll be here in the afternoon.”

Nile thanks her again and hangs up, wiping away a tear at the corner of her eye.

She goes to sit down between Joe and Nicky, tucked into a warm embrace. She’s texting Booker, her eyelids dropping as the adrenaline rushes out of her system.

‘Andy OK. Quynh with her.’

Booker texts back, ‘nothing to worry about then’

Nile falls asleep before she can reply.

*

The next few weeks are a blur to Nile. She doesn’t see an end in sight, doesn’t feel like focusing on her exams. She skips all her last lectures, her attendance good enough so far that she can afford it.

She goes where Andy goes.

Andy doesn’t complain at first, but Joe voices his concern that it would be a shame for Nile to drop out so close to graduation.

She sits down with Nile on a bench as they walk home, the sun lingering with the spring breeze.

They’re both tired, Andy’s bruises still stark against her pale skin.

Nile’s eyes dart to them from time to time, ever since they left the airport. She hasn’t said much since the morning.

There were no close calls this time. A simple job to get some compromising papers on a CEO of some big company. Copley is usually the one who cares about the politics behind those things, so they don’t ask too many questions and go in as planned.

“It was easier to do this when I didn’t know you as well,” Nile starts, looking at a bird perched on a streetlamp.

Andy looks at the bird, too.

“And now?” Andy asks.

Nile shrugs, shoulder brushing against Andy’s. “Now it sucks. I didn’t factor in I’d actually like you.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m trying to say I don’t want you to die, Andy.” She elbows her. “Not just because you’re our Leader or Boss or whatever.”

Andy slips her arm around Nile’s shoulder. “Yeah, I know.”

Andy’s been there. She remembers the odd sensation of calm that washed over her when Lykon’s heart stopped beating. The inevitability that their time is limited. The relief of it.

The grief, of course, goes hand in hand with it.

“You can’t put your life on hold because I may or may not die soon,” she says, “That’s not living.”

Nile grabs her hand, holding it against her shoulder. “Yeah, I know.”

They sit in silence for a while more, the sun setting over them. When they finally decide to get back home, Nile takes her phone out. “Can I get Quynh’s number?”

Andy looks at her, then fishes out her flip phone from her jacket. “Sure.” She gives it to Nile, not wanting to pry.

“I just want to thank her.” Nile explains, adding the number to her contacts then handing her the device back.

“For what?”

Nile just gives her a deadpan look, walking ahead of her.

Andy has to jog to keep up.

*

There’s a pinch to Andy’s heart when she walks through the threshold, exhausted but happy to be done for the day– her shoulder giving the faintest of twitch as she closes the door quietly.

The flat is dark, she’s pretty sure she can hear Nicky’s light snores and –

Sitting on the sofa, making herself as small as possible, limbs folded over, is Nile.

There’s a laptop screen on, white light stark and greying out on the edge of Nile’s socks.

Nile is awake, not making a sound.

But Andy sees it clear as day, the tears streaking down her face, the grip of her fingers’ hold on the fabric of her sweatpants.

She removes her shoes, drops her pack and labrys soundly.

Sits down next to Nile, who doesn’t bother hiding, not even a flinch. Her training is too good by now, she’s probably heard Andy from outside.

She’s still letting her in.

“Hey, kid,” Andy whispers, her leather wrist guards almost glistening against Nile’s ankle in the faint light.

Nile answers with a sniffle, which makes Andy smile. She turns to look at Nile, then at the screen.

“Due tomorrow?” she asks, already prepared for an all-nighter.

Nile shrugs. “I could get an extension.” Her voice is rough, but firm.

Andy nods. “But you don’t want to.” It’s not a question, Andy’s following Nile’s train of thought as if it’s her own.

You finish what you start, you don’t give yourself any allowances.

You know you’re better than this.

She looks at her, at this tall girl, barely 30, essentially a child.

Andy was mortal when she was her age.

She blinks, worrying her lip.

What does she know of not handing in assignments at 26? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The realisation is as exhilarating as it is painful.

"Anything I can help with?" Andy asks, not wanting to leave her side.

Nile’s fingers twitch, and she reaches out, slips her thumb under her palm. Wraps her hand around Nile’s, squeezes once.

"Maybe don't go on missions alone for a while." Nile says as she drops her head on Andy's shoulder.

She lets out a sound at the back of her throat and rubs her face with her other hand (momentarily hiding from Andy).

"Ok." She replies, closing her eyes for a few seconds.

Andy stays in that moment, doesn’t want to get up just yet to put the kettle on. Carefully strokes Nile's braids, tucking a few behind her ears.

“Joe and Nicky?” she asks, thumb skimming across Nile’s the back of Nile's hand.

Nile shrugs, snorts. “They went to bed early, and I didn’t want to disturb them.”

Andy nods slowly. “So Nicky heard you but didn’t push?”

“Pretty much.”

After a beat, Andy rummages through her pockets. She finds a small praline, wrapping skewed as it started to melt on one side. She hands it to Nile wordlessly. 

Nile grins as she picks it up, unwrapping it and popping it into her mouth. She chews thoughtfully and takes a deep breath.

“Okay, I’ll try to write another paragraph?” It’s phrased as a question, but she already pulls the laptop towards her, wiping her nose with her sleeve.

Andy gets up, gives Nile’s hand one last squeeze and busies herself in the kitchen.

*

After a few semesters, Nile feels almost wistful realising this is her last year of bachelor’s. Winter semester is coming to an end, everything quieting around campus and students holing up to finish assignments and prepare for exams.

She’s learned to love this period - obviously not on her first time – and is managing pretty well this year. She’s already planning in which department she’ll do her bachelor’s thesis and is reading up on an exam a week ahead. It’s her first time doing this, the whole university thing, and she’s getting the hang of it. She feels damn proud.

Nicky, on the other hand, is not.

Which Nile finds surprising for a man who is almost a millennium old.

Joe and Andy, however, do not seem phased at all. Even Booker texts her memes of overcaffeinated students with the caption “Nicolas De Gênes” and she has to hide her giggles behind a cough.

After some prodding (literally just asking “what’s the deal with Nicky and studying?”) she is taken out for a very long walk by Joe, who is apparently so relieved he can finally tell someone _new_ about his life partner’s inability to study.

It started in 1085, in Rome, and has been a series of disastrous last-minute handing ins and all-nighters on Joe’s part to finish entire dissertations on time.

“Have you ever tried finding extra rolls of parchment during a recession, let alone at night? Impossible!”

According to Andy, Joe is too kind to ever say it, but Nicky once ran away from the city they were staying in because he was too scared to show up in front of the head scholar for review.

Joe spent three days looking for him.

He refused to sleep in the same bed as Nicolo for a week after (and apparently refuses to do so when Nicky has to hand in time sensitive assignments, regardless of the century).

So now that Nicky chose to take one chemistry and one Russian literature class on top of his usual mosaic of courses, he is looking incredibly disheveled. Even for him.

“I have homework,” he says, final, the only sign of distress the emphasis on the “h” which he never usually bothers with.

Nile looks at Andy pointedly.

Andy shrugs, halfway through the process of cleaning their guns for the week, as per their chore chart.

Joe is still at university, and Nile wonders whether she can help Nicky.

Andy, however, is giving Nicky side looks from time to time. Nile decides to kick back and observe for now.

Seems like a weird Andy & Nicky power play, disturbing and wordless. Often involves a bet of some kind. 

She takes out her phone and asks Booker whether Nicky having a homework tantrum is usual.

He replies under two minutes, ‘Yes and No. Only if maths or languages are involved.’

She texts back “both” and checks in on Andy.

Andy’s stopped trying to pretend she wasn’t staring at Nicky. Nicky is very much trying to pretend he is being productive.

He’s not.

‘What stage of crazy eyes are we at?’ Booker asks, and Nile takes a second.

‘If Andy’s actively staring, probably an 8’

Booker sends three laugh emojis. She grins.

An hour later, Nicky is making sounds that indicate distress. Joe is still not back. Andy has moved to the sofa close to where Nicky is sprawled on the floor, coffee table a spread of chemistry textbooks.

She’s reading one, something titled “Advanced Analytical Chemistry” and humming as she flips pages.

Nicky’s foot is tapping rapidly against his other leg. She’s fairly sure the coffee table might not last the day.

Joe chooses this perfect moment to open the door and announce, “I’m home, and I have sushi!” and the whole tension that filled the room suddenly deflates.

Joe blinks for a second at Nicky’s startled face, Andy’s suspiciously impassible one, and Nile sprawled on the armchair, textbook forgotten on her lap.

“Anyone hungry?” he asks, taking his jacket off and putting the bag of food on the table.

Nile immediately springs to her feet, ravenous and Andy follows suit, practical as always as she grabs plates and bowls from the cupboards.

While Nile is busy checking the containers, she absently notices the soothing quality of Joe’s voice dropping in tone and slipping into Italian, effortless.

From the corner of her eye, she sees Joe’s hands on Nicky’s shoulders; Joe hovering in a crouch, whispering as Nicky murmurs back, practically inaudible. Nicky’s hand finds Joe’s thigh and Nile stops looking, preparing water glasses and placemats instead.

Sometimes she envies this ease of comfort.

Just sometimes.

*

Graduation is not something Nile expects.

In theory, she knows it happens once she completes all courses, validates all her credits. In theory, she knows once she defends her bachelor’s thesis, she waits some weeks, crams for exams, waits again, gets her results.

Then what?

She graduates.

As it comes closer, she’s not enthused. She’s tired. She’s had to think about Master’s applications for months now, awaiting answers and choosing where to go next. She’s not even thinking about celebrating. She goes back and forth on decisions, sitting down with Joe on their park bench, or when slicing up carrots with Nicky on a Saturday morning.

It creeps up on her.

This feeling of dread, of something ending. She knows, rationally, that she's had to experience those things in the past.

Hell, leaving the army so abruptly was a shock in itself (if not dying), but she finds this slow, anticlimactic end worse.

It's too much of a reminder of things to come. She doesn't want the death of her mother to feel the same. She doesn't want to know if one day she'll have to watch Andy grow old. She's already got so used to all of them, the one comfort in having this insane ability. She's not alone. But what if one day she is?

She knocks on Andy’s bedroom door at 3am, two days after they all came back from a hostage rescue situation. She’s not sure whether Andy’s really getting 12h of sleep every day or if she, like her, is having trouble sleeping.

Andy opens her door, hair mussed and dark circles enhanced by the sole light filtering out from outside her window.

So, the latter.

“Can we go to the sea?” Nile asks, and Andy just blinks twice at her before she nods, stepping back into her room towards her ageless backpack.

“Any preferences?” she asks, voice low, and Nile just shrugs. Her pack is waiting in the living room, and Andy leaves her customary note for the boys.

*

Hours later and Andy is driving, sun coming up in dusty patches, the sea a twinkle of blue in the distance.

Nile blinks her eyes open, wipes the side of her mouth.

“Hungry?” Andy hands her a paper bag, which reveals honey glazed pastries. Nile smiles gratefully, immediately eating one.

She licks her fingers, watching the passing fields of green and yellow. After a few minutes, she takes her phone out, stares at her lock screen. Her brother smiles back at her, her mother's eyes the most reassuring thing she knows.

“I miss them,” she says simply. Andy’s sunglasses tip forward of her nose, and she looks at her then back at the road.

“Yeah, kid.” She slides her hand against Nile’s shoulder and neck, squeezes gently.

They don’t say much else after.

Nile enjoys the wet sand, hard against the soles of her feet, and the wind deafening in her ears. She’s wearing a windbreaker but still, the force of it hits her.

Andy seems unperturbed, as if in her element.

As with most things, Nile assumes Andy’s had time to relive this over, and over.

She wonders if it feels as numbing for her.

By the time she can’t feel her cheeks and her eyes well up with the sea breeze, Andy treks up a sand dune, over a hill.

Nile runs up to her, breathless when she reaches the top. Andy grabs her forearms to steady her, smiling back at her.

As they walk back down, Nile grabs Andy's arm for balance again.

"Are there any places you haven't been to?" she asks, curious.

"Oh, definitely," Andy says, feet digging deeper into the sand. She catches herself, laughs a little.

"It's not as if any place stays the same," she continues, "I discover a new place every time I leave and come back."

Nile stops for a second, trying to process the words. "So does everything feel new every time?"

Andy steps down, helps Nile along. She's a little out of breath, too, Nile notices.

"Yes and no. I think that's the beauty of time."

They keep walking, occasionally dipping their feet in the rippling waves.

Andy stops by a village for food, before they drive further on.

That night, they stay in a small granite house, cool and dark but with a well-kept chimney and sturdy oak furniture.

Andy tells Nile about the first time she came here, when there was no accessible road and the tide sometimes came up as high as the cliff edge.

She tells her about coming here with Booker, after his son died.

She points at some oil paintings framed on the walls, tells her Joe had an impressionist phase, like everyone else in the 19th century.

She doesn't mention Quynh, but Nile doesn't ask.

They go to bed after the fire is reduced to embers, Nile giving Andy a brief hug.

Andy holds on a second longer than she normally does.

-

In the morning, Andy wakes up at dawn, goes to sit outside where she can see the tide rise.

She takes a picture and sends it to Quynh.

_Quynh,_

_A nice view._

_You would like it here._

_Andy_

She goes back inside and starts a fire, tucks Nile's sweater in front of it to warm it up.

*

Nile goes for a Master's right after her bachelor’s ends, because apparently that’s a thing people do now.

She decides to go to Paris.

No one is really surprised; Joe and Nicky take the opportunity to focus on the work fully, going back to London to help Copley with logistics. Nile is relying on the Eurostar to keep them in touch; they're not an ocean away, which is a comfort.

Nicky almost forgot to hand in his thesis but did so after repeated nagging from Andy and Joe. Nile’s not sure she ever wants to get involved with Nicky’s disruptive student habits.

Andy, cryptic as ever, drops Nile off at one of their “safehouses” in Paris – a 90sqm flat in the 9th district – and leaves just as fast with her pack and (barely) hidden labrys on her back.

That’s that, then.

She contacts Booker after her first evening there. She feels a bit lost; regrets not asking anyone to stay with her for longer. But then, it wouldn’t be a semester abroad if she brought her whole gang of immortals with her.

After a week, she contacts Quynh. She hopes it’s not untoward – but she’s been thinking of her more often, and she did reply to her last text with an emoji.

She starts her classes in the last week of August, newly minted diploma now framed in the living room, looking deceptively simple surrounded by moldings and tall windows framed by delicate iron balustrades.

After two weeks of getting confused by the metro, the students and the coffee prices, she feels a bit less thrown off her axis. She still has to ask Booker to meet her once a week to have a drink and have him explain the story of the Haussmann streets.

It’s comforting, probably as much for him as for her.

She texts her friends from “back home” – not that she’ll ever move back there again in a while, but it feels nice to have connections to new people. Group chats she can mute if she’s too tired, cute pictures to check after classes (or during).

She meets new people – mostly people like her, fish out of water written all over their stressed faces.

She catches herself forgetting she’s immortal, only brought back to her with a soft ping of her phone at 2am, when Andy checks on her.

She wonders if Andy feels the exact opposite of her, right about now. Does she forget she's mortal, too?

*

After a month, and despite her convenient healing tendencies, she feels the lack of sleep and over indulgence in wine (and pastries) creep up on her.

She misses her morning walks with Joe, and Andy’s Ruthless Workouts. Something she never thought she’d say, having once compared the latter to her military training.

The Marines know jack shit about endurance.

Her new friends – and doesn’t that feel stranger, still, to say – explain to her the best tricks to survive on a budget.

She doesn’t tell anyone she doesn’t need to budget, because it comes too naturally for her to still live this way.

She certainly doesn’t tell anyone how both Nicky and Joe transfer her money at random times, often with little communication notes that make no sense – “Treat yourself at Stohrer!” or “Have you been to the Orsay museum yet?”.

She’s really still not convinced either of them know or care about currencies and inflation.

Andy sends her a steady stream of transfers, no communications. Just the knowledge she’s thought about often.

Booker pays every time they meet, crumpled euro notes slipped into her jacket pocket as they leave - always tipping the French waiters too much, a small pile of coins left behind on Formica tabletops.

She decides to drag Booker to sports classes with, despite the fact he refuses categorically at first. She compromises by letting him choose a movie to watch after each one.

The progression of it starts thus:

The first week, she finds places that give free first lessons and signs them up to fourteen different classes.

Booker taps out of spinning after 10 minutes (valiant effort) and later, kickboxes a sandbag so hard it bounces back and hits him in the face.

Nile is impeccable, but she does upstage the kickboxing teacher, so they call it a day.

In the end she drags Booker to a yoga class and that’s a novelty to both of them, so they stick it out until the end of the class.

Booker falls asleep in child’s pose and Nile’s fit of laughter is so contagious they get thrown out by a very irate French woman.

That’s fair.

She's not sure she loves French cinema at all, but Booker seems to. So, she sits with him through _Les parapluies de Cherbourg_ and just hands him a kitchen roll when he starts crying.

The rest of the time she’s getting used to attending classes in different parts of the city – “The city’s the campus, Nile!” is fun and all coming from Joe, who facetimes her at the weirdest hours, but the Parisian metro is a different story.

Thankfully, after a couple months she’s got the hang of it. She finds a gym near her main uni building, three metro stops away from an old arthouse cinema. She can always rely on Booker to show up if she texts him early enough for a showing.

*

On a random October day, she comes home to find three immortals in the flat, Joe already tidying up the table to make way for plates.

Nicky is idly looking out the window, clearly searching for external threats (probably snipers) but there is something cooking in the kitchen that smells delicious.

Andy is the one who opens the door when she hears Nile’s key, greeting her with sparkling eyes.

“Andy!” she exclaims, smiling as she’s enveloped into a comforting hug. “What are you doing here?” she asks, feeling warm all over.

She drops her bag in the hallway with her shoes, not caring where they fall as she rushes towards Joe for a hug.

Nicky isn’t far behind, a knuckle’s brush to her jaw his way of saying “We missed you” where Joe just declared it out loud a second ago.

Over dinner, she learns they’ve been trying to dismantle a human trafficking network along the EU. They ended up in Geneva and decided to hop on a train to say hi – not like the mission won’t drag on for another few weeks.

Nile doesn’t even hesitate before sharing what she’s been doing – museums are a lot of fun on any morning, coffee with her friends a treat for after. She likes some of her classes, dislikes others; she hates how expensive some bars are, but the obnoxious arrogance of Parisians is almost endearing to her.

That last one has all of them laughing, apparently a timeless observation.

They stay over for two more days, taking Nile to all the places they lived in over the years, occasionally recalling anecdotes in some streets that feel like historical treasures.

Joe and Nicky leave together, taking the train from Gare du Nord, Andy and Nile waving them off outside. They walk a few streets over to get Andy some baklavas (Moroccan ones, with almond and honey, Nile learns), and sit down at the Canal – Andy tells her about how recent this place is to the city, turns towards her with a smile.

Nile is just happy to sit there and ask why.

*

Andy is enjoying Paris, to the extent that she decides to stay longer.

She loves to comment on how everything has changed so much since she was in last in _Lutèce_ , and it takes some getting used to, Andy referring to city names that are defunct, but Nile doesn’t even bat an eyelash by now.

Of course, Nile is not born from the last rain, as the French say – she knows Quynh is also in Paris, according to her secret intel (Booker). So that’s an interesting development.

Not one that Nile would ever try to meddle with. 

Especially not while Andy and she are cooking dinner, her French homework long forgotten.

“So, in the past five years...” she starts, casually, and Andy already gives her a side look from the stove. She scowls back.

Nile continues.

“Have you never thought, you know, would be nice to see some old friends again?” she says, undeterred.

Andy stops for a second, spoon hovering next to the pan, and then resumes.

“Yes, because I have so many of those,” Andy retorts.

Nile gestures to the room at large. “I don’t mean the star-crossed romantics.” 

Andy gives a small laugh and raises an eyebrow at her. “Why don’t you just ask me if I’m seeing Quynh anytime soon.”

Nile feels her eyes growing wide, “Well... I don’t know!” she splutters, and now Andy’s laugh is a full one.

Andy smiles, soft. “You can ask, Nile. It’s fine.”

Nile nods, somehow embarrassed.

“Yeah, I don’t know. Must be weird, I guess?” she says with a shrug. Andy mirrors her, crossing her arms.

“You got that right.”

She thinks for a second.

“I mean, we did have a fight once. After Lykon.” She stops talking, but Nile doesn’t need her to continue. “Anyway, we say we’d meet when we’d both be ready to. We set up a place and a time to meet at once a year, so we could find each other if we wanted to.”

Nile nods, wondering how feeble it must feel to rely on such a simple promise.

“How long did it take you to meet again?”

Andy looks up, lost in thought. Recollecting, presumably.

“I think I lost count, actually.” The thought of it makes her smile. “But when we met again, it felt like barely a week had gone by.”

"And now?" Nile asks.

"It's closer to a day," Andy replies.

She still has the ghost of a smile on her face as they eat dinner, but Nile feels like she has more questions than answers when it comes to who Quynh is to Andy.

*

It turns out some people are assholes. Whether you hold a dozen degrees in something doesn’t preclude you from being a bigot.

Which Nile knew, but it doesn’t make it any easier to have to deal with it on a daily basis.

“Is it too late to change universities?” she asks one day, head in her arms in front of her laptop.

Andy is lounging by, reading an old tome from one of the numerous bookshelves in the living room.

“Never too late when you define the hour, why?” she replies, turning a page.

“I hate my course teacher, and he hates me?” she says, voice bitter.

Andy closes the book over one finger, sitting up. “Does it impact your learning on the topic?”

Nile shrugs, one eye open to see Andy. “I guess it’s just for this one course, and I’m hoping it won’t affect my grade.”

Andy nods. “What makes me feel better, sometimes,” she starts, then pauses. Looks a little lost for a second. “It’s to think you’ll get to outlive this person. For better or worse.”

Nile straightens up. “What do you mean?”

“You can decide if their legacy will matter. Exposed, maybe. Or hidden. You wouldn’t be the first person to do it.” She points at the bookshelves, at themselves. “History is rife with it.”

Nile stares, maybe a little too long. It’s not a perspective she necessarily hates, but it’s also not something she’s comfortable with.

It reminds her that she’s not really just a student in her 20s getting a degree.

It reminds her she has the power to change things on a scale she can’t even envision.

It reminds her, looking at Andy sitting there, looking for all the world invincible, that maybe Andy won't outlive any bigot this time.

It’s making her stomach contract and her breathing speed up.

Andy releases the page she was holding, puts the book down.

“Walk and cinema?” she asks, and Nile nods, relief palpable in the way her shoulders sag.

*

She stays in Paris.

She qualifies for a double diploma, majoring in Ancient History. She only needs a year’s worth of credits, which feels like the perfect amount of time to continue studying before she can allow herself to go back to their work full-time.

She’s grown fond of the city.

Booker lives here, and while the others still interact with him minimally, she likes to spend time with him.

Andy moves in with her after she enrolled in the program, while Joe and Nicky decide to travel and dedicate more of their time to their work.

Nicky specifically asked to take over some of Andy’s major missions, and Andy agreed reluctantly. It’s a little suspicious, how fast she did, but Nile has a suspicion it’s not unrelated to the presence of Quynh in Paris.

And so, she says nothing, happy to be by Andy’s side and juggle her schedule as always between late night flights and early morning lectures, cat naps in trains and classrooms alike.

*

After a while, she sees more of Quynh. She usually meets her in museums, with or without Andy.

“It's because it's the easiest way for me to understand how time moved forward,” she once explains to Nile, sitting in a gallery in the Louvre.

Nile has never been on this floor. All the paintings look dark, austere portraits and winter landscapes. Apart from them, there are two other people. It's eerily quiet.

Quynh points to a few paintings. One of them is just a _nature morte_ of fruits and fish.

"They may not be anyone's favourite, but they serve a purpose." She takes out a notebook, writes down the names of the paintings and their artists.

Nile is starting to understand her a little better, one museum visit at a time. "They record time?" she asks, and Quynh looks up, gives her a smile.

"Yes. I like that."

Other times, they go for walks. Quynh loves the small side streets, shares pieces of history about people who lived there. Her memory is incredible.

"When you have to only a few minutes to live, you see your life flash by before your eyes," she explains, walking in front of an old, non-descript building.

Nile bites the inside of her cheek, not wanting to say anything that could interrupt.

"Eventually, your life becomes all the people you've met. You see their faces, you hear their voice. You remember some of their names," Quynh continues, her eyes searching for something above the building's door.

"Ah, there!" She points, excitedly.

Nile squints, and sees a small engraving.

"Is this hebrew?" she asks.

Quynh nods. "This was a synagogue. The rabbi here was very kind. His wife was a great cook."

"How can you remember them?" Nile is struggling to remember her childhood friends' names right this second, let alone the face of strangers she met years ago.

Quynh takes out her notebook again, jots down a few words.

"I don't know." She starts to walk again, Nile following suit. "Maybe it was a kindness done to me."

Nile looks at her, puzzled.

"Instead of remembering only my pain, I can keep the memories from before, too." Her eyes are sad, but she still gives Nile a smile.

Nile swallows down the lump in her throat and accepts Quynh's offer to sit down for a drink.

*

Graduation in France is everything Nile expected it to be.

Nile is wearing her black and yellow robe, standing proudly with the other students.

When her name is called, the whole amphitheatre claps, but what she hears is her immortal friends cheering and whistling, all three of them standing up.

After there’s a reception; students are wearing nice clothes under their university robes and there are parents and siblings gathered, champagne flutes and small hors d’oeuvres passed along.

Quynh and Booker arrive together, the former impeccably dressed while Booker looks like he slept in his suit. Nile beams at them both all the same, thanking them for coming.

Booker leaves quickly after, giving her a brief hug and present wrapped in brown paper.

Quynh comes over, curious.

“He wouldn’t tell me what it is,” she says in lieu of a greeting. “Congratulations, by the way.”

“Thank you!” Nile grins, grateful. “Glad you could make it. You look good.”

Quynh gives her a small smile, eyes warmer than she’s seen them in a while.

They’re interrupted by some of her classmates, and Andy walks up to her as Nile is taken away.

They both stand in a corner of the room, easily ignored.

“Hasn’t changed much, has it?” she asks, and Quynh tilts her head.

“I wouldn’t know. I never really cared about all this.” She waves a hand around the milling crowd of people.

Andy nods, acquiescing silently.

Quynh laces her fingers through Andy’s, looking over at Nile’s blinding smile when Joe picks her up from behind. Nicky and he are trying to hoist her on their shoulders, singing the Dottore song, French students around taking in the scene and laughing along.

“Where to next?” Quynh asks.

“Wherever Nile wants to go,” Andy replies.

Quynh nods thoughtfully. “You know, Nile has a theory.”

Andy raises an eyebrow, not surprised. “What about?” she asks.

“That you’re only immortal around me.”

Andy takes a deep breath. She had reached the same conclusion months ago. “You think she’s right?”

“I think there’s nothing wrong with testing a hypothesis.”

*

Nile wakes up the next day and she feels older, like she aged over a decade in the past five years alone.

Everything feels faster, down to how she remembers things.

She hasn’t set foot back in the US, and she doesn’t know when she’ll feel ready. The gang usually has an unspoken accord to leave her out of those missions, and she doesn’t complain.

If she lets herself gradually see her family as memories, intangible and full of nostalgia, maybe it’ll be easier to let go when the time comes.

She thinks of herself, a hundred years down the line, having to reinvent herself every few decades – moving countries, moving lives and donating old clothes, books; weapons.

Shedding their borrowed identities, down to the leftover ones used for her applications to different study programs.

She’s done so much in the past years.

On top of saving lives (and taking some), preventing military coups and dismantling human trafficking rings, she also stayed out late not thinking about the next day, the next fight. Drank so much she actually got hungover for a whole day after, something apparently impressive to Andy, but extremely worrying to Joe and Nicky.

She had to retake exams and she finished first in other classes.

She wonders if, for other people her age, learning was such an all-consuming experience.

She wonders if, had she not become immortal, she would have gone through life without knowing about the droll insouciance, privileged and almost caustic, of academia.

She hates how hard it’s been, to leave her friends behind. She keeps in touch, but realistically she can’t expect to see some of them again in a few years. She’s lost her army crew, she lost her childhood friends back in Chicago.

She keeps losing friends and having to forget them before she’s ready to – the Booker situation a constant reminder that it won’t be easier in a hundred years.

She feels a pang of guilt, knowing how lonely it’s going to be for him after this, whenever she moves again. His world narrowing, and his absolute resolve to accept it as just punishment angers Nile, despite knowing this is what was fairly agreed upon.

She drags herself to the kitchen, smelling something delicious. Joe is cooking, greets her with a smile and bunched eyebrows when he sees her face.

“Graduation blues, huh?” he asks, stirring vegetables in a huge pan.

She just walks towards him wordlessly, tucks her head into his side in answer, stays there for as long as she can before he has to move. He pats her head softly.

Nicky comes up silently behind her to kiss her temple, then Joe’s cheek. “It’ll pass,” he says, his usual cryptic manner bringing a smile to her face.

She takes her leave and goes to the living room, where Andy is sharpening her labrys, soft music playing in the room.

She sits down close by, hypnotised by the motion for a while.

When Andy’s done, cleaning the blade with a cloth, she clears her throat.

"So, feel like kicking ass full-time again?"

Andy laughs, loud and happy. She hands her the labrys, which Nile holds almost reverently.

"I never stopped, kid."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a translation of The Thebaid by Statius. A running theme I often have with Nile & Andy is Greek mythology and derived poems. This time around the muse Clio was a fun source of inspiration, as was her mother Mnemosyne. 
> 
> Booker got Nile a Mont-blanc fountain pen because he's a sentimental French bastard and I love him. 
> 
> Please feel free to yell at me for any inaccuracies, geographical, historical or emotional.  
> I am French and therefore deserve to be roasted.


End file.
